After spending the vast majority of the day updating, I've launched TSW to see just what has changed. The thing that has jumped out at me is the new UI, and just how hideous and unfriendly it is. The old DLC selection screen needed improving, however this new one is slow, clunky and doesn't help you to find things. The addition of the driver avatar serves no purpose than to be annoying and pop in around a second after everything else. A simple tile layout would have made things so much more user friendly. Grouped together by countries. The colours of the UI are a mish-mash. Some stuff is the new yellow / orange. Some stuff is the old blue. And some stuff is green. My toddler shows more colour coordination. The weird colour gradients on the buttons and menus reminds me of when I first discovered WordArt, which I believe was the early 2000's. Back then gradients were cool, but now no-one uses them, and for good reason. Most websites and games now use solid blocks of colour, it makes it look much more stylish. Hiding the return to main menu option on the start menu is also odd (and it causes the game to dump for me). The entire start menu is quite garish in design and just not pleasant to the eye at all. The old UI could definitely have been improved, but what we have here is a significant, significant step backwards. The UI is the first thing a new player sees, and having it presentable and easy to navigate is really important.
I'm in complete agreement with you. The new UI is not an improvement and feels amateurish in many ways.
One oddity of the new UI is that there is a distance travelled indicator on the explore by foot option, yet this doesn’t seem to count distance walked, but miles driven. Why it’s on the explore by foot option square is a mystery. I’ve walked over a mile on one route getting collectables and not one yard recorded. It shows zero which is the number of yards/miles I’ve driven.
Hidden under an options menu that's off centre. Also what's the drawing of the ICE for? Also, the speed part of the gradient profile seems a bit broken
It would be great to choose which ui style you want to use. It don't really like it, but I guess I'll have to get used to it.
After seeing the new UI I wish I could get the old one back because it's much cleaner and easier to navigate with mouse and keyboard. The new one is obviously optimized for consoles.
I wasn't a fan of the new UI when I first experienced it 2 weeks ago via Epic and my opinion of it hasn't changed. The whole interface is now console optimised. The vertical text route selection was so much cleaner and the avatars only serve to create constant CPU spikes and unnecessary lag. My only hope is that one day a talented mod author writes something which improves it
I agree with you. It lags even more than the last GUI did and this time is a complete backwards step The new orange looks terrible; long live the old light blue!
Although I'm not playing on console, I do use an Xbox controller. And I can confirm it's not a nice experience using the controller either.
As an xbox player I very much preferred the old UI, but I'm sure I'll get used to it in a few weeks... The new one is clunkier, uglier and harder to navigate, both with a controller and mouse/keyboard
Yeah it’s terrible, definitely a step down. My biggest gripe is that when you select your weather options you don’t actually get anything highlighted on the first 5 options, so you just have to count your way through them. They need to either revert it to the old UI or create a new one ASAP.
The biggest thing I noticed is how my mood changed due to the color scheme. It's dark and gloomy. I'm a fan so I'll cope.
I agree the mustard colours and the new map is pretty rubbish in my opinion but it doesn't effect me driving the trains so I can get used to it. I would of liked some of the pause menu info on the T button keybind
Loving the update but the main menu UI is indeed a step back compared to the previous. It's laggy and really quite messy. The overview of the routes is even worse now and their icons are just too large, cluttering the screen. I would have hoped for a more orderly design by grouping routes by countries or by predominant activity of the route, or even by rail operators but in a separate menu. Clearly, this has been primarily designed with consoles in mind.
In this case DTG didn't do a good job regarding this part of the UI. But maybe they didn't have console players in particular in mind when designing it. Other than the UI, I'm pretty happy with this update.
I posted a thread a week ago about my main issues with the 4.26 UI here https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/one-major-grievance-i-have-with-the-new-4-26-ui.43346/ The new map (next to the overview tab) is next to useless IMO due to the default zoom level and overlapping text
They could of have Just three icons on the menu One for , US, UK, Eu and then have icons for all the routes under the relevant ones and maybe that would've cut out the lag a bit? Not a fan of it the way it is but more concerning is the amount of lag and GPU/CPU spikes some are getting.
I'm on PS4 which is currently screwed, but even the route selection screen is a backwards step; slow and tedious to navigate. I can't comment on anything else because any route I click on immediately crashes the game.
I'm in the minority - I don't mind it. However what I do mind is selecting a route for the first time and waiting 15 seconds for the diarama to load, and then waiting another 15 seconds for the first loco I don't want to drive to load up before it'll let me select the one I want to drive. Thankfully this reduces after the first time but it's still a good few seconds. The diarama is useless - I thought the point was to see the front and side of the train, not the front of it? I'd like to see what livery I have selected without looking at the 10 pixels that indicate it.
I made a thread about the new UX a couple weeks ago after one of the first streams showcasing it, with some thoughts about it before I even got to use it. Now after launching the game with the new update, its even worse than my initial impression. Biggest issues: 1- The main menu (route selection screen) is NOT friendly at all to PC (keyboard/mouse users). As I said in my thread, it looks like it was designed only with consoles in mind - even though some on consoles don't like it either. Scrolling via mouse wheel is jumpy and not smooth. There are 5 routes visible at any given time, which means I will almost always have to scroll to get the route I want, breaking one of the main rules of UX development. I agree with OP, a tiled layout would be much better, capitalize on the screen space available with as much content as possible. Of the 5 routes, only the middle one can be clicked on to advance into its options. Clicking any of the other 4 moves that to the middle, and then I have to click on it again to advance. 2 - The character profile person needs to go, or at least be able to be turned off. It what, shows the uniform for the route? Who cares? It serves no point. 3 - The accent color of the game should be user selectable. It seems to change every year with the big update, so why not just make it user selectable and be done? 4 - The use of bigger font sizes (and Icon sizes) needs to be selectable. It looks bulky on smaller screens. It's probably great who use a TV and sit on the other side of the room, but on my 27" monitor that's 2ft from my face, it doesn't look great. 5 - In game pause screen: Hiding Restart/Settings/Main Menu/Exit behind ANOTHER menu button is a downgrade from the old pause screen 6 - On the weather selection screen, the Precip/Wetness/etc. need to be their own boxes. The entire box lights up orange, but there's no visible feedback on hovering over the individual sliders. I imagine that's even worse on consoles. From a design perspective, the UI isn't all that bad. Some things could use some subtle transparency and tone down the colors a bit, but it's not a bad principle. What is clear is that whoever thought up this design, clearly doesn't know how to design a *FUNCTIONAL* UX - because while this one gets you to where you want to go, it certainly is not friendly in doing it.
And we can no longer see what the clouds or rain looks like whilst we're adjusting the sliders either
I play on console and honestly I prefer the old ui. There's a saying that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I guess dtg never heard of that. Perhaps it would be a good idea for dtg to not change things that don't need to be changed. I can understand for wanting to try new things but that should only be done if people want something new. If not then don't do it. I guess the person who designed this doesn't know how to design good ui's
If a design change means that it takes more button presses to complete a task, then the change probably isn't needed..
Some changes presented on the occasion of the premiere of Rush Hour are terrible. Fortunately, these are aesthetic issues, without much impact on the gameplay. The bad taste remains. Colors, fonts, etc. Bad joke.
I have trouble believing that the new main menu was designed by anyone actually playing any games. It feels like the sort of thing someone from marketing would come up with to „make the game look cool and flashy“ or something like that.
It really is a step backwards in terms of UX. I'm always surprised going back to TS2021 how much faster I'm able to get where I want to go. Select a route, view it's available trains. Select a train, view it's available routes. It can be clunky as well but in general feels like a much more powerful interface that the endless scrolling that TSW2 requires. The pause screen is also a big step down and the map as well as gradient is poorly done.
DTG say they listen to our feedback. I wonder what they will say about the criticism of the new ui. I rather them go back to the old one
Cannot disagree with this at all....every aspect of the new UI screams marketing rather than useability
I absolute hate the UI and I think it’s the worst one TSW has ever had. It almost makes me dizzy just by looking at all the odd sized UI elements with random colours. It looks very unfinished, as well as looking so clunky whilst poorly optimising available screen space. Why are buttons all squashed together, in one corner of the screen? Very poor in terms of accessibility in my opinion. We also have awkward buttons and it actually takes longer to navigate menus now. Why is the return to menu, restart scenario etc options hidden away under the options button on the pause screen?! A bad design choice by DTG. The previous UI was miles better.
I don’t like having to hold L1 to be able to return to main menu. When hunting collectables from station to station, this extra step takes away some of the time saved with the faster loading screens.
The whole UI looks like it's completely tailored to console players, who are sitting at a distance from their TV with only a controller in their hands. It's definately a step back for PC users who are close to their screen and have access to a keyboard and mouse. A few things I personally dislike; - the 'E'-key doesn't work in several menus, it now only works when you click the '[E] Continue' button with your mouse. - it takes me considerably more time to find the route I want to play, routes are less easily recognizable and I'd have preferred the old system or a grid-like system like Train Simulator uses. There is also no end of the list, since it cycles. No longer can you remember that newer routes are first on the list and older routes are last on the list, as you just keep scrolling in circles. - when selecting the weather and time of day, you can't see all the weather effects since your train is inside a station. I also don't like that the train is viewed from the front, showing bad visibility on its side, with no option to rotate the camera. And then there's the HUD; - the upperleft HUD element is even larger than it was before, with no option to scale it down. It's TOO HUGE. I like my HUD elements small so I have a larger portion of the screen available to view the virtual world. (That's what I'd like to call "Immersion"). - the distance to next objective HUD now makes the text move every 1m or 1y when below 1000m or 1000y, because numbers aren't all the same width and the text moves based upon the width of the distance text, which just annoys me.
As a console gamer, the only thing I like is the increased font size in the top left of the hud. Before I couldn't see the distance to the next target and the clock. Everything else is really rubbish. I won't repeat what has already been said in this thread because I agree with everything. I definitely preferred the previous one. What a shame of development time wasted on changing something that no one ever complained about. On a humorous note, it took them a year to add the flags to almost all the routes and now they have removed them!
They could've added such a feature without messing everything else up. I admit names on the map is an improvement, but that doesn't make the whole UI better in general. I don't mind visually impaired people given the option to enlarge HUD elements so they can see stuff, that's a good thing. However, I do mind that we're all forced to use the enlarged HUD despite several of us already complaining about the old HUD being large.
Always felt someone at Dtg had a taste bypass operation. Their delight in bright clashing colours is an aesthetic kick in the teeth, devoid of all subtlety like a cheap supermarket promotion. I’m always glad to get in the game and lose those hideous intro screens, which are more suited to a “My Little Pony” game. It just devalues the whole experience. However I’ll hold back and not tell you how I really feel…
The new UI has some neat features but they should’ve developed them into the old UI style instead of overhaul the lot. The change of focus from blue to yellow icons is an odd choice, makes things harder to read. Bring back the blue! Blue is always better The route selection screen isn’t great. It also seems to stutter a little bit because it is constantly loading in a driver model when you scroll routes. The driver model itself just doesn’t fit in on this screen at all. The previous list was alright in my opinion, with a nice big image of the route you had highlighted. The flags were better than company logos too. The only thing of value added here is the filtering option. The route screen looks better here to me, I like that your progress is shown without having to going into explore. Journey Mode menu looks a little less cluttered with a single medal icon. No problem here beside the too much yellow. Scenario menu looks a better, can actually see the preview images properly now. My favourite thing here though is in service mode, the menu actually now gives you an ETA on how long a service might take you to complete! Mastery menu is better, doesn’t pester you on startup and I like that community challenges are displayed here too. Not much else to say on this one. Gameplay UI - I understand why the larger fonts were added but they should’ve been an option. Something about them looks off to me, I think they need spacing out a tiny bit to compensate for the larger size? The distance markers and destination look a bit cramped to me. I like the new menu diorama, I’d like to see it taken a step further and have each route given it’s own unique diorama in future. That about sums up my thoughts on the new UI
I’m not surprised so many people don’t like the new UI menus. It’s because liking them or not liking them isn’t based on subjective opinion, they are just badly done. The look and style changes throughout the different pages. On the live streams they are oh so proud of the new donut centre dot in the HUD because it helps people who can’t see so well and then the new mini map, which has to use a different control scheme on the controllers to navigate than the full map, will be useless for those same people. Even siting in front of a massive 4K TV the labels are hard to read. It’s because it is designed badly. Very badly. The size of the labels, the ambiguity of the points on the route that those labels relate to and the low contrast colour scheme with overlapping elements. Not everything in the UI has that same colour scheme, the pause screen itself being different, and that points to a lack of consistency in design, but the “baby sick” colour looks bad everywhere it is used and is particularly bad against a medium grey background. It’s not too bad against a black background but it’s a poor choice of colour. The new diorama for the menus removes information about what the weather sliders are doing and that just hasn’t been thought about, probably due to a lack of understanding of how useful seeing the sky was before. And each slider isn’t highlighted to show which one is being changed when using a controller. I’d suggest DTG make changes soon rather than in a year’s time to restore that functionality and the sky in the diorama. The HUD while playing has been improved a bit though, with the bigger objective distance font and centre dot choices. For the main part, the functionality of the UI just needs time to get used and a few issues, like the weather sliders, need fixing but the look of it in parts and the changing looks throughout the pages will just remain bad design.